


when the wicked play

by hydrospanners



Series: renegade [10]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Drabble, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 07:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15601449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrospanners/pseuds/hydrospanners
Summary: After witnessing his first real lightsaber duel, Doc reflects on the contradictions of what the Jedi are supposed to be and the realities of fighting a war.





	when the wicked play

It doesn’t happen like in the holos.

Not that Doc was expecting it to. He’s a smart man. He’s always known that real Jedi couldn’t much be like the otherworldly heroes you see in stories. He’s always known those people were fantasies. Modern fairytales. He was expecting the real thing to be different. 

Funny how expecting a thing doesn’t always prepare you for it.

He’s hunkered down behind a collapsed pillar with Rea when he gets his first taste of a real lightsaber fight. They’re pinned in by a few dozen Imperial troopers raining a torrent of blaster fire down on them. Their weapons are screaming and there’s beams of red energy pouring over their makeshift cover on every side. 

Until, suddenly, it isn’t. 

Rea’s gone before he can so much as blink. He peeks over the edge of the pillar just in time to see her slam into the ground fifty meters away. To see a blur of black and blazing red rolling away from the impact.

Doc’s been watching her clutch of baby Jedi practice in the hold. He’s watched the push and pull of their movements, the give and take. He’s watched them pause and reposition knees and feet and ankles, paying close attention to their footwork as their practice blades met in burst of crackling energy. 

Watching them was a lot like watching vids. It was a dance of sorts. Graceful and elegant. Beautiful, even in its lethality.

But that was just sparring. 

The real thing is no dance. The real thing is a fight to the fucking death. 

It’s not like in the holos. They don’t take time for stare-downs or stand-offs, don’t waste breath on taunts or speeches. There’s no flashy flourishing of weapons or complicated acrobatics.

They just fight.

Rea is little more than a blur of blue light as she collides with the Sith across the field, her sabers swinging too fast for Doc’s eyes to track. She’s hammering her enemy from every side, pushing him back and back and back. Her assault is savage and relentless and there is nothing like grace or elegance in any of it. It isn’t beautiful; it’s violence. Ugly, brutal violence.

The whole thing is over in less than a minute.

Blue meets red meets blue meets blue meets blue meets red and then the Sith’s head is hitting the floor with a muffled thump. It happens so abruptly Doc doesn’t even realize it’s ended until the rest of the body collapses a heartbeat later.

Only it hasn’t ended really. That’s the other thing the vids get wrong. The fight isn’t over when there’s only one laser sword left standing; the Imperials don’t just lay down arms cause there’s no Sith left to defend them.

Rea cuts through them like paper. 

She leaps from one fight to the next without pause. The Imps don’t even realize their Sith is down before she’s slamming into the center of their ranks, dropping three bodies in a single sweep. Their armor splits like tissue before her humming blades; their blasters are next to useless against her speed and agility. There’s no defense they can raise, nothing at all they can do to stop her. 

They’re helpless. They’re helpless and she cuts them down anyway because this isn’t a holo or a book or a bedtime story.

This is a war. This is a war and this is what Jedi do in wars. They fight. They kill.

Doc is a smart man; he was expecting to see this eventually. But it’s funny how expecting a thing doesn’t always prepare you for it.


End file.
